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He points to my cup. “Didn’t you just go?”
“There’s no limit on Starbie drinks and trips, Winnie.” I place my hand over my heart. “I’d do that for you.”
“Blueberry?” The rise in his tone eliminates my small smile and turns it into a full-blown beam.
“Of course, anything for you.”
He slaps the counter. “That’s my girl. Alright—” He drags in a long inhale—“I’m going to go see if she’s ready.”
“Hang in there, champ. Few more hours and we’re out of?—”
“Olive, sweetheart!” My whole body cringes at the sound of my mother’s voice seeping into my ears and the absolute dread that fills my veins.
What the fuck, dude?
Winslow salutes me, taking his out without a word and leaving me to deal with my mom…and, fuck me, my sister, too.
“Mom,” I quip, already thinking of a way to get her the hell out of here. “What are you?—”
“Happy birthday, my sweet girl.” She beams at me as if I just won a championship. “Oh, I can’t believe you’re twenty-four.”
“That’s what comes after twenty-three,” I mutter as my mother rounds the desk and wraps me tightly in her arms.
“Aw.” She pats my head like an insolent cat as my eyes connect with Norah’s unamused stare, definitely wanting to be here as much as I wish her and Mom to be. “We’ve come to pick you up for lunch and some pampering afterward.”
I try to pull my head out of my mom’s bear hug but she clamps onto me like a leech. “Mom, I didn’t take the day off.”
“What do you mean? We do this every year.”
Yeah, and I hate it.
Expensive lunches of foods I can’t even pronounce. A shopping trip consisting of browsing the middle-aged women’s section at Kohl’s. Half a day of judging other people and, oh, why I didn’t marry Marshall.
“C’mon, honey,” Mom urges, finally releasing me from her iron grip. “We have reservations.”
“Mom, I can’t,” I argue. “I’m working.”
She quirks a brow. “Don’t you get a lunch?”
“Yes, but?—”
“Why are you still working here anyway?” Norah rebukes, folding her arms along her lack of tits. “That guy broke up with you and he’s your boss.”
“Because I won’t let her go,” Hudson’s voice claims flatly, jerking my neck to my left as he approaches the desk.
Those black-inked arms are so goddamn sexy as he strides toward us. His white tee makes them pop as his muscles stretch out the fabric. My jaw becomes lax in awe at how he just openly claimed that he couldn’t live without me even though we fake broke up.
Get a grip. He meant because you’re the receptionist.
“Ladies…to what do we owe this pleasure during working hours? Did you finally give in to the dark side and decide to get tatted?”
You know, if I didn’t know any better, I would think he was teasing them.
“Hudson,” Mom greets with a sliver of cheery and the rest animosity that he had the nerve to break up with me. “Nice to see you.” Lies. “We were just picking up Olive for lunch.”
“Who?”
I narrow my eyes at him while my mother and sister appear aghast that he’d for real forget my name that easily.
